The “Isolation. Voices from the basement” report, presented on Monday, shows that the Russians and the Donbas separatists subordinate to Moscow in a secret prison in Donetsk committed torture on Ukrainian civilians, such as electric shocks, waterboarding, sleep deprivation and regular beatings. Sokolov Valery Anatolyevich, one of the people whose accounts were included in the report, says he was imprisoned for two years.

The report is an over 60-page document, which was based on the accounts of prisoners of war. Its authors are Polish journalist residing permanently in Ukraine, Monika Andruszewska and Ukrainian lawyer Witalij Chekalo. The report was commissioned by MEP Anna Fotyga from the group of European Conservatives. A video conference dedicated to the report was held on Monday.

“The attitude towards everyone there is cruel. It really became a concentration camp,” one of the prisoners held between 2016-2019 with no contact with the outside world reported.

As stated in the introduction to the report, it contains “facts of human rights violations under international law committed by Russians and by so-called separatists in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.”

The document shows that the Russians and the separatists supported by Moscow use physical and mental torture against the civilian population of Ukraine.

Reportedly, during the armed conflict in Donbas since 2014, almost 4,000 Ukrainian citizens were captured by separatists supported by Russia.